It was toward the end of the third week of May that the Admiral signalled me to proceed on board the flagship. It was late in the afternoon of a thoroughly wretched day; the wind had been blowing hard from the south'ard for the past three or four days, with almost incessant rain, and there was a very heavy sea running between the islands and the main. I had just returned from my second inspection of the boom that day, and I naturally thought that the signal indicated a desire on the part of the Admiral to question me in relation to the stability of the structure. And when I entered his cabin, and he greeted me with the question:

"Well, Captain Swinburne, how is the boom standing the sea, out yonder?"

I was confirmed in my opinion. But I presently found that I was mistaken; for when I had told him all that there was to tell about the boom, and he had expressed his satisfaction, he said:

"By the way, it is Commander Tsuchiya who has been your chief a.s.sistant in this work, is it not?"

I replied in the affirmative.

"And I suppose he understands the whole business pretty well by this time, eh?" the Admiral continued.

"Every bit as well as I do, sir," I answered, seeming to scent other work for myself at no great distance.

"That is good," commented Togo. "Do you think he would be capable of completing the work without further a.s.sistance from you?"

"Undoubtedly he would, sir," I replied. "Indeed, I think it right to say that, after the first day, Commander Tsuchiya required no help or suggestion of any kind from me at all. He seemed to perfectly understand the principle of the boom's construction, almost from the very beginning; and after the first day's work upon it he took the entire supervision into his own hands, leaving me nothing whatever to do but merely to look on and satisfy myself by personal observation that the work was being properly done."

"Which it was, I presume?" remarked the Admiral.

"Which it certainly was, sir," I replied.

"Good!" said Togo. "That being the case, you are free for another service. How would you like the chance to get a little fighting ash.o.r.e, by way of a change?"

"Jove!" I exclaimed, "that would be splendid, sir. Are you going to land a naval brigade anywhere?"

"Well--no," answered the Admiral, "hardly that, I think; at least, that is not my present intention, although circ.u.mstances may possibly render it desirable, eventually. The matter stands thus,"--turning to the table where a map of the Liaotung peninsula lay unfolded upon it.

"This,"--pointing to a certain spot on the map--"is where General Oku landed, the other day, with his army. And this,"--pointing to another spot--"is where he is now. His object of course is to march south and lay siege to Port Arthur. But at this point, some two and a half miles south of Kinchau, which, as I suppose you know, is a Chinese walled city, the isthmus is only about two miles wide; and in and about the city the Russians have established themselves in force, prepared, apparently, to dispute Oku's pa.s.sage of the isthmus to the last man.

"This mountain, so prominently marked on the map, is Mount Sampson. It is more than two thousand feet in height and, as you will readily understand, dominates the entire district. Upon this mountain the Russians very strongly established themselves, scarping the heights and constructing formidable breastworks behind which to shelter themselves.

Of course it was necessary for our troops to take this mountain, since, until that could be done, to pa.s.s the isthmus would be impossible. I am glad to learn that the mountain is now in our hands.

"But here, just to the south of Kinchau, is another range of hills, known as the Nanshan Heights. They form a sort of backbone to the isthmus, and occupy almost its entire width, their crests completely commanding the narrow strip of low ground on either side. On these heights, too, the Russians have very strongly established themselves; so that although Mount Sampson is in our hands, the isthmus remains impa.s.sable. The unfortunate fact, so far as we are concerned, is that General Oku has no heavy artillery with him, otherwise he would be able to sh.e.l.l the Nanshan Heights from Mount Sampson, and drive the Russians out. But he has only field and mountain guns, of a range insufficient for that purpose; therefore he has requisitioned help from me, and I propose to send some craft round to Kinchau Bay, to sh.e.l.l the Russian positions from the sea."

"Kinchau Bay, sir?" I interrupted. "Pardon me, but the water in Kinchau Bay is so shallow, according to the chart, that I am afraid any of our craft capable of carrying guns heavy enough to be of service would have very great difficulty in approaching the land near enough to be of any real use. Why not Hand Bay, sir, on the eastern side of the isthmus?"

"For the very good reason, my dear fellow, that not only is Hand Bay mined, but it would also be impossible for us to clear it, the bay being completely commanded by works which our craft could not face for five minutes. No, it must be Kinchau Bay; there is nothing else for it,"

answered the Admiral.

"That being the case," he continued, "it is my intention to dispatch thither the _Akagi, Chokai, Hei-yen_, and _Tsukushi_ to afford the a.s.sistance required by General Oku; and those ships will be accompanied by a torpedo flotilla, the duty of which will be to take soundings, lay down a line of buoys inside which the ships must not pa.s.s, and search for and clear the bay of mines, as well as to render such further a.s.sistance as may be possible to the land forces.

"I antic.i.p.ate that the work required of the torpedo flotilla will be of an exceptionally arduous and hazardous character; and for that reason, Captain Swinburne, I am going to place it under your command, with the _Kasanumi_ as your flagship. I have been keeping my eye upon you, sir, and I will take this opportunity to express my very high appreciation of your conduct. You have manifested all the dash, the fertility of resource, and the cool courage under exceedingly trying conditions which we have grown to look for as a matter of course from Englishmen; and to that you add an element of caution which I fear we j.a.panese have not as fully developed as we ought to have done; I therefore regard you as the fittest man I could possibly select for the service upon which I now propose to employ you. That also is the reason why I have so fully explained to you the situation at Kinchau, for it is very necessary that you should clearly understand all that may be required of you.

"We have, of course, any number of j.a.panese officers whose courage would be quite equal to the task I am a.s.signing to you, but they unfortunately lack that element of caution which you possess, in proof of which it will be my painful duty to presently announce a series of terrible disasters, news of which has just reached me, and three of which, at least, I am afraid I must attribute to a lack of caution."

"Indeed, sir," I said; "I am exceeding sorry to hear that. Is it permissible to ask particulars?"

"Oh yes," answered the Admiral, with a heavy sigh. "I should not have mentioned the matter to you at all, but for the fact that it must very soon have come to your ears in any case. Within three days, sir, we have lost six war vessels, while a seventh, the _Kasuga_, has been temporarily put out of action. And of the six lost ships, Captain, two are battleships, the _Hatsuse_ and the _Yashima_!"

"The _Hatsuse_ and the _Yashima_! Good heavens! sir. Is it possible?"

I exclaimed.

"It is more than possible," answered Togo, with another heavy sigh, "it is a disastrous fact. And in addition to those two ships, we have also lost the _Yoshino_, fortunately not one of our best fast cruisers. Oh!

it is terrible, terrible! And all three disasters have occurred to-day, within a very short s.p.a.ce of time. The news reached me by wireless in the interval between my sending for you and your arrival.

"It appears that while the _Yoshino, Takasago, Chitose, Kasagi_, and _Kasuga_ were to the westward of Port Arthur this morning, just after dawn, they ran into a patch of dense fog, while steaming through which, the lookout aboard the _Yoshino_ sighted a floating mine a short distance ahead. Thereupon the officer in charge seems to have temporarily lost his presence of mind, for instead of sheering out of the line, as it seems to me he might have done, and so avoided the mine, he instantly stopped and reversed his engines, without warning the _Kasuga_, which was his next astern. The inevitable result of course was that the _Kasuga_ struck the _Yoshino_ heavily, making such a terrible rent in her side that, in spite of collision mats, she speedily filled, capsized, and sank, drowning over two hundred of her crew. The _Kasuga_, badly damaged, is on her way hither, and may be expected to arrive some time to-night.

"That disaster, however, serious as it is, is nothing compared with the loss of the _Hatsuse_ and _Yashima_, which occurred shortly after midday. Little did we dream, as they steamed away from here, this morning, that we should never see them again! It happened about ten miles south of Port Arthur, the two ships striking mines within a few minutes of each other. The _Hatsuse_ appears to have struck two mines, the second of which completed her destruction, for she foundered in less than two minutes after the second explosion occurred. I understand that considerably more than half her crew have gone down with her.

"There were hopes at first that the _Yashima_ might be saved, as collision mats were got over her damaged bows and the steam pumps were started, while she headed for here under her own steam, with the rest of the squadron in company; but the latest news is to the effect that she cannot possibly be kept afloat, and that her crew are being taken off.

Well, it is the fortune of war, I suppose, and it is useless to murmur; we cannot hope to always have things go well with us, reverses _will_ happen occasionally; and I am afraid that we have been growing just a little too careless and over-confident of late. We must take the lesson to heart and see that it does not again happen. But it is a paralysing blow for us.

"And now, to return to the matter which more immediately concerns you, Captain. I have given you the earliest possible warning of what I am going to ask you to do, in order that you may have an opportunity to think over the situation and make your plans. I want you to be ready to start at practically a moment's notice; but I shall not dispatch the squadron until I have further news from Oku, which may arrive at any minute."

As it happened, however, although a communication arrived from Oku the next day, it was a full week before we got our orders; for a careful reconnaissance revealed that very important preparations would be necessary before it would be possible to take Kinchau, or storm the Nanshan Heights.

Just about sunset the _Shikishima_, with her attendant cruisers, hove in sight, and before they were hull-up it was possible for us to distinguish that the _Yashima_ was not among them. She had gone down off Dalny--in shallow water, fortunately--but not until every man had been safely taken out of her.

The other losses to which the Admiral had referred were torpedo-boat Number 48, and the dispatch boat _Mikayo_, both of which had come to grief, the one on 12th May, and the other two days later, through striking mines in Kerr Bay, some thirty miles to the north-east of Port Arthur. Torpedo-boats Numbers 46 and 48, it appeared, were engaged in sweeping for mines when the accident happened. They had already found and destroyed three mines, and had discovered a fourth, which they fired several rounds at without result. Then Number 48 imprudently approached the mine with the intention of securing it, when it exploded, blowing her in two, and killing or wounding fourteen of her crew of twenty-three.

It was two days later when the _Mikayo_, believing the bay to be clear, entered it to make sure. She was pa.s.sing in through the channel supposed to have been cleared by our torpedo-boats, when she, too, struck a mine; there was a terrific explosion, and she went to the bottom, with eight casualties in her crew of two hundred. She was a useful little ship, having a speed of over sixteen knots when she was destroyed, although she had been known to achieve as much as twenty.

She mounted two forty-sevens and ten 3-pounders, and was therefore not a very formidable fighting craft.

The story told by the Russians concerning her destruction was to the effect that she fell a victim to a mine, placed overnight, in the channel previously cleared by our boats, by a young Russian naval officer, who stole out from Port Arthur in a small steam launch, under the cover of night. Whether the story is true or not, I cannot tell, yet there is nothing very improbable about it, for it is indisputable that many of the Russians displayed as fine a courage as even the j.a.panese themselves.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

AT WORK IN KINCHAU BAY.

Meanwhile, I was spending my days poring over the maps and charts of Kinchau and its neighbourhood with which I had been supplied, leaving Commander Tsuchiya to carry on the work of constructing the long boom, and merely visiting it in a picket boat at the close of each day, to see how the work was progressing. My study of the maps and charts had reference to a scheme which had come into my head whereby it might be possible to determine the ranges of the several Russian positions from certain fixed points in the bay with the utmost accuracy, thereby greatly increasing the effectiveness of the naval fire when our flotilla should be called into action. The map in particular which had been issued to me was drawn upon a scale so large that even comparatively insignificant distances could be closely measured upon it, and it was so full of detail that apparently every building, however unimportant, was marked upon it; also it was "contoured"--that is to say, it was covered all over with wavy lines, each of which represented a definite height above sea-level. With such a map before me it was of course the easiest matter imaginable to determine the position of all the most salient points of the landscape, of which there were several, and--a.s.suming the map to be correctly drawn--to measure the distances of these from one another.

With such a bountiful fund of at least approximately accurate information for a starting-point it was a simple matter for me to fix upon a number of points in the bay--as many as I chose, in fact--which could be clearly indicated by buoys bearing different coloured flags, the positions of which could be accurately determined by cross bearings; and my plan was, first to lay down these buoys and determine their positions, and then mark them on maps, a copy of which would be handed to each captain, from which, by the employment of a scale and a pair of dividers, he could immediately measure off with precision the exact range of any object desired.

Having at length arranged my scheme on the map to my liking, I proceeded with it aboard the _Mikasa_, and submitted it to the Admiral, who, with Captain Ijichi, the Commander, and several of the officers of the ship, examined it with the utmost interest, asking me several questions in connection with it. When I had fully explained the scheme, they all agreed that it was an admirable idea, and would undoubtedly be of the utmost value--_if_ it could only be carried out. Togo was of opinion that it could not; I, on the contrary, was convinced that it could; and at length I managed to get the Admiral's somewhat reluctant consent to make the experiment.

Armed with this, I went ash.o.r.e and, making my way to the carpenter's shop which formed part of our sh.o.r.e establishment among the islands, ordered a certain number of small triangular rafts to be made, of a size just sufficient to support a bamboo staff ten feet long, to the top of which a flag six feet long by three feet wide was to be firmly lashed, the flags to be of different colours, arranged in pairs. The rafts were constructed merely of rough timber stoutly nailed together, while the flags, being only required to last a day or two, as we hoped, were made of coloured calico, the edges turned over and hemmed with a sewing-machine, that they might not fray or tear. A couple of hours'

work sufficed to complete my small requisition, with which I returned to the _Kasanumi_.

It was within half an hour of sunset when I got aboard with my boatload of miscellaneous paraphernalia; and as the torpedo flotilla always kept steam while at the Elliots, excepting when it became necessary to clean flues or boilers, we at once got our anchor and proceeded to sea at a speed of twenty knots. I was bound round to Kinchau Bay, the distance of which from the Elliot group, by sea, was about one hundred and thirteen sea miles; I therefore reckoned on arriving at my destination about midnight, which would suit me admirably. The moon was in her third quarter, and was due to rise, that night, at a few minutes after one o'clock, which would also suit me excellently.

For a wonder, the night was fine, with a light air out from about south-east; there was no sea, and not much swell, and as the destroyer was running well within herself, we went along quite easily and comfortably, and I seized the opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep, leaving the navigation of the boat to my chief officer, who was quite equal to the task.

The trip was uneventful, and at midnight Lieutenant Hiraoka aroused me with the intimation that we were standing into Kinchau Bay, and were already near enough to the land to enable the watch-fires on the hills to be made out; I accordingly turned out and went on deck to take a look round. I had studied my maps so exhaustively that, dark though the night was, I was able without difficulty to identify the various heights in sight, of which Mount Sampson was by far the most conspicuous; the general appearance of the land, indeed, was remarkably like what I had already mentally pictured it to be, and I seemed to be gazing on quite familiar ground. We were of course running without lights, and there was hardly a ghost of a chance of our being seen, but I eagerly searched the bay for craft, and was gratified to find that it was empty.

But if there were no craft, there might be a good many mines; therefore in order to avoid all possible risk we crossed the bay to its northern sh.o.r.e, keeping well out, and then, going dead slow and feeling our way with the lead, we hugged the northern sh.o.r.e line as closely as the depth of water would permit, until we arrived abreast a little indentation, or cove, when the engines were stopped, the boat lowered, and, with my revolvers in my belt, but no sword, a pocketful of cartridges, a water bottle, a wallet of provisions, an azimuth compa.s.s, and a box s.e.xtant, I was pulled ash.o.r.e and landed in the cove, the boat immediately returning to the destroyer, which soon vanished in the darkness, making for the offing.

There were some half-dozen small, crazy-looking fishing-boats drawn up on the beach of the cove, and, groping about, I presently found a footpath leading somewhere inland. This I cautiously followed for a little distance until the crow of a wakeful c.o.c.k and the bark of a dog warned me that I was at no great distance from a human dwelling of some sort, when I struck off the path and waded through a field of millet, heading north-west for the summit of a hill which I easily recognised, even in the dark, as one of the points from which I purposed to take my set of observations. My more immediate anxiety, however, was to get away from the neighbourhood of all human habitations, for although I knew pretty well, in a general way, where the Russians might be expected to be found, there was always the possibility of running unexpectedly into a small detachment of them, or of encountering some Korean peasant who might be disposed to betray me, upon the off-chance of securing a reward for so doing.